


For Me, It Isn’t Over

by embroiderama



Series: The Surprise of Our Glory Days [2]
Category: White Collar
Genre: Angst, Crossover, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-21
Updated: 2012-11-21
Packaged: 2017-11-19 04:51:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/569302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embroiderama/pseuds/embroiderama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter knew that something was going on with Neal after the aliens left, but all he could do was watch and wait. And wait. In the end, he could only wish he'd been kept waiting longer. (Please see the end note for other warnings if you want story spoilers.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Me, It Isn’t Over

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Surprise of Our Glory Days](https://archiveofourown.org/works/564371) by [rabidchild67](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabidchild67/pseuds/rabidchild67). 



> After I read [](http://rabidchild67.livejournal.com/profile)[**rabidchild67**](http://rabidchild67.livejournal.com/)'s amazing White Collar/Star Trek crossover [The Surprise of Our Glory Days](http://rabidchild67.livejournal.com/151683.html), I was overwhelmed by the need to write something from Peter's POV to fit between parts 4 and 5 of her story. So, this thing happened, and RC graciously allowed me to post it. It fits into her universe as best I could, and you should absolutely read her story first or this will make little to no sense. However, this story actually has almost nothing to do with Star Trek.

Neal changed, after the deal with the aliens from the future. Peter thought that the world had changed for all of them, but with Neal it seemed to be a fundamental change in him, his _self_. Peter hadn’t known at the time if it was the brush with death or witnessing the violence of the Cardassians, seeing the earth from space or his attachment to the man with the pointy ears, or some combination of all those things.

Neal rarely spoke of it, but the year or so after the aliens left saw Neal turn into a seeker. Peter saw the evidence in the books Neal carried, in his behavior at times and in the tracking data. He visited churches for a while, beautiful historic churches and then smaller ones--Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox. Synagogues, a mosque, a mandir. A Buddhist meditation center, a Pagan circle that worshiped in Central Park, a Secular Humanist group that met at a coffee shop. Whatever he was seeking, he left very few stones unturned.

Eventually, Neal settled into a regular routine of visiting the meditation center, and as the months went by Peter noticed the edge of something like panic that had become a part of Neal begin to relax. His smiles were more real, and Peter was happy to see it. Neal rebuffed all of Peter’s attempts to talk about what had happened, but slowly everything got back to normal, more or less.

Years went by, and everybody celebrated the end of Neal’s parole. Neal wove together a career from continued work with the FBI and private sector consulting, and he spent a lot of time painting though he seemed to make little effort to sell his work or even show it. As far as Peter could tell, he never dated. Flirting was a reflex for Neal, but he never let it go beneath the surface. He rarely even let Peter in, and later on Peter realized he’d been missing Neal for a long time before he was actually gone.

Neal was never interested in celebrating his own birthday, which seemed like a logical consequence of a lifetime of trading identities. Neal Caffrey’s official birthday was in July, but after everything that happened with Ellen and with Neal’s father, Peter quietly gave Neal a card on Danny Brooks’ birthday in March. After that, it became a tradition for Neal to have a special dinner with Peter and El on his real birthday.

The year Neal turned 38 hadn’t been the best year. El had a health scare that ultimately turned out to not be life-threatening, but she had to have surgery. Neal was there through it all, calm and strong, helping Peter hold himself together. His schedule was more flexible than Peter’s, so he went with El to some of her appointments and charmed her out of dwelling on the maybes. Then what should have been a simple bust on a forged antiquities case turned into a nightmare after an explosion trapped Peter and Neal in a collapsing warehouse. They were essentially unhurt, but there was no way out and the rubble they were trapped under seemed liable to fall and crush them at any moment.

Peter gave in to panic, but Neal was serene, as if they were just stuck in a stalled elevator. Peter was suffocating even though they had plenty of air, and Neal seat down across from him in their bubble of space and took his hands. “We’re not going to die here,” he said. “This is not how we’re going to die.” As much as it should have been empty reassurance, Neal said the words with absolute certainty. He believed, and Peter was able to believe long enough for rescuers to get them out of there with nothing more than scratches, bruises and a touch of smoke inhalation.

Then Satchmo died. He was an old dog, and he’d lived a damn good life. When he stopped eating and the veterinarian diagnosed cancer, Peter couldn’t bear the idea of putting him through surgeries and treatments that he wouldn’t understand as anything other than abandonment and torture. Peter would’ve spent the money ten times over to let Satchmo be young and healthy again, but that wasn’t a possibility. Faced with the certainty of Satch dying within the year with or without treatment, Peter held onto El as they had him put to sleep. They used a vet that made house calls, so Satchmo died peacefully at home, and Peter dug a grave for him in the corner of their tiny back yard.

And Neal, the man who had held Peter and El up through near-tragedies, was furious in a way Peter hadn’t seen since the debacle with the man who’d turned out to be his father. He fled from any hint of grief from either of them, a fear Peter couldn’t understand lurking behind his anger. He investigated the veterinarian for any evidence of incompetence, and he railed against the pet food industry and environmental toxins, cell phone radiation and the questionable priorities of medical researchers. He got so carried away with his need to blame somebody that Mozzie told him to settle down. _Mozzie_.

When Neal’s birthday grew close, El talked him into allowing her to plan a big party. The prospect clearly made him uncomfortable, but she needed a fun project and he couldn’t deny her that. All of the furniture was cleared out of Neal’s apartment to make room for the guests and the jazz trio June hired as her gift to Neal. Despite the cool March night outside, the room grew warm from the people and the lights, and when Neal disappeared Peter knew he’d find him outside.

A pair of smokers were on the other end of the terrace but otherwise Neal was alone, leaning against the balustrade with a glass of wine in his hand and looking up at the gray sky.

“I found you,” Peter said, trying for a joke.

“You always do.” Neal looked over but he didn’t smile.

Peter sighed. “Neal, will you tell me what’s going on with you?”

“I’m fine. I just think maybe I’m too old for birthday parties.”

“Hey, don’t talk to me about too old. Just wait ‘til you’re in your fifties.” Peter shook his head. He sometimes still couldn’t believe that he was over 50, that El was over 40; it seemed impossible.

Neal laughed, quiet and utterly without humor. “Right.”

They stood together without speaking for a while, caught between the muted sound of music from inside and the traffic noise from below. Peter put his hand on Neal’s back, and Neal leaned into the touch for a few long, slow breaths before straightening up and pulling away. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t say anything sooner, but I’m going to go away for a while.”

“Away? A business trip?”

“No, just some traveling. I know I got around a lot back when I was on the run, but there are some places I never got to see. I don’t want to miss them.”

“I don't think you need to be in a rush, plenty of time left. I figured you for the kind of guy who’d retire early and travel the world, but not quite this early.”

Neal shrugged, a tiny, tense movement. “You never know.” As true as the statement was, it sounded like a lie.

Peter bumped his shoulder lightly into Neal’s. “You’re making me worry here. You’re not sick or anything, are you?”

“I’m perfectly healthy—just had a check-up and everything.”

“Okay. Okay, well, send me some postcards, will you?”

“Of course.” Neal smiled that fake con man’s smile, and Peter’s gut told him that something was wrong-wrong-wrong, but there was nothing he could do other than let Neal go.

Four months later, Neal walked out of the airport arrivals terminal, tan and bearded and greeting them with genuine smiles that took the edge off of Peter’s worry. Less than a week after he came home, Peter got a call from Neal early in the morning; June had passed away in her sleep. Neal handled it with all of the calm sensitivity that he'd had with the previous year's crises, and Peter watched and waited for the cracks to form, but they never did. Neal helped June's staff handle all the practical things, he made sure June's family and old friends had transportation and somewhere to stay for the funeral, and he prepared to move his own things until June's lawyer explained that June had made arrangements for him to stay. He cried at her funeral; he bent but he didn't break.

Two months later, Neal passed out in the elevator on his way up to the White Collar office. When the specialist diagnosed him with a rare blood cancer, he looked sad but resigned, not surprised. He handled the snowballing horror of his disease with a calm that was the dark brother of the serenity that had carried them through almost everything else.

Peter wanted to shake him. He tried to talk Neal into trying experimental treatments even though the doctor gave them very little chance of working, but Neal held firm.

“You let Satchmo go. Why do you think I want to go through all that for nothing?”

“You’re not a dog!” Peter shouted, feeling his blood pressure soar, his pulse pounding in his ears. "And he was practically 100 in human years. You're not even 40!" Peter heard his voice crack, but he couldn't help it.

"You think I don't know that? I'm more than old enough to make this decision."

“But you would understand why you were suffering! You're not a dog. You know what’s happening!”

“Yes, I do.” Neal smiled then, a gentle smile, a real smile on his terribly pale face, and Peter couldn't argue any more.

On his 39th birthday, Neal was in the hospital, alive and conscious but barely. The doctors said his organs were shutting down and that he had not nearly enough strength left to fight. They said it would be a matter of days, and Peter couldn’t help but believe them. Neal’s friends came to have a brief, quiet birthday celebration—no jazz band this time, far fewer people, but Peter thought that Neal surely knew he was loved and that was the only thing keeping him from putting his fist through a wall.

Mozzie was even more squirrely than normal, and he wouldn’t talk about anything other than the mundane details of the moment. He held Neal’s power of attorney, both medical and legal, and he didn’t leave the hospital, ever.

A few days later, Neal was awake, too exhausted to speak but aware enough to communicate with his still so expressive eyes, and then suddenly, despite the oxygen mask on his face, he couldn’t get enough air. Mozzie ran to get help while Peter held Neal’s hand as his worn-out body jerked and his eyes filled with all of the panic that had been missing during the months of his illness. Quickly and inexorably, he drowned on dry land, his eyes went blank, and the force of nature that had been Neal Caffrey was gone.

Medical staff pushed Peter away from the bed, and Peter stumbled out into the hallway and then into the waiting room where he sat with his face in his hands. His breath was hot and jagged in his chest, his eyes wet and burning, and he texted El because he needed her but he couldn’t speak. She was only downstairs, getting lunch or maybe browsing the gift shop for something shiny that would make Neal smile. Then she was kneeling in front of Peter, and he was holding her, and for a little while they were all that existed.

“Suit. Peter.” Mozzie’s voice was worn and raw-sounding, and Peter looked up from El’s shoulder to see him slumped next to them with his hands in his pockets. He looked like he’d implode if anybody touched him, but when El turned to hug him he just held himself stiff. “If you want to see Neal you should come now. There isn’t any time.”

“I don’t see how there can be any hurry now.” It was too late, Peter thought, entirely too late.

“There is. Please.”

El sniffled and nodded, then she took Peter’s hand and tugged until he followed her back to Neal’s room. Men in unfamiliar-looking scrubs stood outside the room with a gurney, but Mozzie rushed Peter and El past them. Peter turned to interrogate Mozzie about what was going on but then El gasped and started to cry, so Peter stood behind her and held her tight. The tragic figure in the bed wasn’t Neal, not anymore, and with his head feeling hot and hollow Peter looked across the bed at Mozzie.

“What the hell is going on here?”

“He’s dead now, what do you care?”

“I care! I’ve always cared!”

El pulled out of Peter’s arms and looked up at him with angry, tear-filled eyes. “Stop it. Stop it.” She looked over at Mozzie then. “Now tell us who those men are because they don’t look like they’re from a funeral home.”

“I’m having him cryogenically frozen, and hopefully in the future they can fix this, bring him back.”

Peter felt sick. “Are you serious?”

“Do you think I would be joking right now? You know, you’ve seen how much more they’ll be able to do in a couple centuries. And he deserves a lot more than 39 years. He's too--he was too,” Mozzie flailed his hands around hopelessly. "Too special."

Peter swallowed hard, he couldn’t argue with that. “But even if it worked, he’d be alone.”

“You know that he wouldn’t. And they have to take him _now_. Please tell me you’re not going to fight me on this, Suit.”

“Nobody’s going to fight you,” El said, and Peter nodded. As bizarre and unlikely as the whole plan sounded, it was no worse than Neal being reduced to a thing in the ground or ashes to scatter. Peter and El stepped back against the wall and watched as the men in scrubs loaded Neal onto the gurney and rushed him out of the room.

There was no reason to stay, after that. Peter hailed a cab to take them home because neither he nor El was in any shape to drive. He sat across the table from her while she called Sara and he called Diana. He took one of the muscle relaxants he had left over from the last time his back went out and curled up in bed. He needed to not think for a while, not feel. El crawled in, fitting her body up against his, and they clung to each other as they fell asleep. Living with Neal’s death could wait a few hours. After all, Peter had a feeling that the living of it would take a long, long time.

The next evening, Mozzie showed up on their front step looking grim and as old as Peter felt. He accepted a hug and a mug of tea from El. “Mozzie,” El said, looking like she was about to start crying again, not that Peter could blame her. “How have you been?”

“Busy.” He took a sip of the tea and cleared his throat. “It’s taken care of. He’s been transported to a facility with enough backup systems to maintain the temperature even in the event of natural disaster or nuclear war. When the time comes, he’ll be transported into space, and if he’s lucky they’ll be able to revive him and cure him.”

“Space.” El was shaking her head. “I can’t believe I didn’t get to meet any of those aliens.”

“You should be glad you didn’t meet _some_ of them!” Mozzie shuddered, no doubt thinking about what he’d seen, the death of his friend Heshie, then ran a hand over his face.

“Sorry, Moz,” El said. “I was thinking about the handsome one, Neal’s friend.”

“Friend,” Mozzie scoffed. “They were a little closer than that.”

“Oh?” El tilted her head, then her eyes widened. “Oh! I had no idea. Why didn’t he say anything?”

“What was the point? He barely even looked at anybody else since that Spock ‘person’ left.”

El looked over at Peter. “Hon, you’re not surprised?”

“No. He didn’t talk about it, but part of him was always far away once the Enterprise left.”

Mozzie nodded. “If this works, he’s going to open his eyes in a couple hundred years and see the inside of some space ship. And then Spock. Of course, this is assuming the government doesn’t seize his DNA to make clones or something but I took steps to prevent that.”

“Do I want to know what those steps were?” Peter didn’t even want to think about it.

“I think not.” Mozzie drank the rest of his tea then stood. “In any case, I’ll be leaving soon.”

El reached out to touch his arm. “We’re going to have a memorial service. Will you come?”

“I don’t think so. I need to be somewhere that's not here.”

“Be safe,” Peter said, and Mozzie looked surprised then nodded.

Later, after the memorial service, after the ragged edge of Peter’s grief had begun to fade and he’d stopped seeing Neal in every slim, well-dressed man on the street, he and El took a vacation. It was a week in Maine to relax and escape the growing summer heat of the city. At night, they sat out in front of their cabin and stared up at the sky, bright and clear and full of stars.

El leaned her head back against Peter’s chest and sighed. “Do you think he’ll really wake up, up there one day? Neal?”

“I hope so. If anybody could get around the red tape of life and death, it would be Neal and Mozzie. I suspect the future won’t know what hit it.”

“It’s just weird to think about. Did they tell him anything about the future?”

“I don’t know. He said something once, when we were talking, about me ending up on Capitol Hill. It seemed completely random at the time.”

“ _Congress_?” El twisted around to look at Peter.

“I don’t know. It sounded ridiculous at the time, but a few days ago I got this phone call. It was just a request for a meeting, and I haven’t even returned the call, but this woman is pretty important in political circles. I remembered that conversation with Neal, and I just don’t know.”

“You could do a lot of good.” El relaxed against Peter’s chest again.

“Maybe. We can deal with it when we get home.”

El nodded and they were quiet for a while, breathing in the clean air and looking up at the stars. “I miss him,” she whispered into the darkness.

A wave of sadness washed through Peter, making his chest feel tight. He pulled El a little closer then sighed and closed his eyes, looking at the inverse of the night sky burned into his retinas. “Me too,” he said. “Every day, me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Character death(s), animal character death (non-violent), grief


End file.
